The wheel of fortune is like a water-wheel, and human beings are like the waters it disturbs. Many are thrown into the channels of action, many are thrown back to be lost for ever in the stream. I am one of the latter: but I shall not consider it disgraceful to me that I am so, till I see that candour, simplicity, integrity, and intellectual power, directed by benevolence and liberty, have a better claim to worldly estimation, than either venal talent prostituted to the wages of corruption, or ignorance, meanness, and imbecility, exalted by influence and interest.
CHAPTER XIV
THE COTTAGE
MR. FAX (IN continuation). ‘I cannot help thinking,’ said I, when Desmond had done speaking, ‘that you have formed too hasty an estimate of the world. Mr. Vamp and Mr. Dross are bad specimens of human nature: but there are many good specimens of it in both those classes of men. The world is, indeed, full of prejudices and superstitions, which produce ample profit to their venal advocates, who consequently want neither the will nor the power to calumniate and persecute the enlightened and the virtuous. The rich, too, are usually arrogant and exacting, and those feelings will never perish for want of sycophants to nourish them. An ardent love of truth and liberty will, therefore, always prove an almost insuperable barrier to any great degree of worldly advancement. A celebrated divine, who turned his theological morality to very excellent account, and died en bonne odeur, used to say, he could not afford to have a conscience, for it was the most expensive luxury a man could indulge in. So it certainly is: but, though a conscientious man who has his own way to make in the world, will very seldom flourish in the sunshine of prosperity, it is not, therefore, necessary that he should sit quietly down and starve.’ He said he would think of it, and if he could find any loophole in the great feudal fortress of society, at which poverty and honesty could creep in together, he would try to effect an entrance. I made more particular inquiry into their circumstances, and they at length communicated to me, but with manifest reluctance, that they were in imminent danger of being deprived of their miserable furniture, and turned out of their wretched habitation, by Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, their landlord, for arrears of rent amounting to five pounds.
Mr. Forester. Which, of course, you paid?
Mr. Fax. I did so; but I do not see that it is of course.
Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran were still leaning over the gate of the cottage, when a peasant came whistling along the road. ‘Pray, my honest friend,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘can you inform me what has become of the family which inhabited this cottage two years ago?’—’ Ye’ll voind them,’ said the peasant, ‘about a mile vurther an, just by the lake’s edge like, wi’ two large elms by the door, and a vir tree.’ He resumed his tune and his way.
The philosophical trio proceeded on their walk.
Mr. Forester. You have said little of his wife.
Mr. Fax. She was an interesting creature. With her the feelings of misfortune had subsided into melancholy silence, while with him they broke forth in misanthropical satire.
Mr. Forester. And their children?
Mr. Fax. They would have been fine children, if they had been better clothed and fed.
Mr. Forester. Did they seem to repent their marriage?
Mr. Fax. Not for themselves. They appeared to have no wish but to live and die together. For their children, indeed, I could easily perceive they felt more grief than they expressed.
Mr. Forester. You have scarcely made out your case. Poverty had certainly come in at the door, but Love does not seem to have flown out at the window. You would not have prevailed on them to separate at the price of living in palaces. The energy of intellect was not deadened; the independence of spirit was not broken. The participation of love communicates a luxury to sorrow, that all the splendour of selfishness can never bestow. If, as has been said, a friend is more valuable than the elements of fire and water, how much more valuable must be the one only associate, the more than friend, to him whom in affliction and in poverty all other friends have abandoned! If the sun shines equally on the palace and the cottage, why should not love, the sun of the intellectual world, shine equally on both? More needful, indeed, is its genial light to the latter, where there is no worldly splendour to diminish or divide its radiance.
With a sudden turn of the road, a scene of magnificent beauty burst upon their view: the still expanse of a lake, bordered with dark precipices and fading woods, and mountains rising above them, height on height, till the clouds rested on their summits. A picturesque tourist had planted his travelling-chair under the corner of a rock, and was intently occupied in sketching the scene. The process attracted Sir Oran’s curiosity; he walked up to the tourist, who was too deeply engaged to notice his approach, and peeped over his shoulder. Sir Oran, after looking at the picture, then at the landscape, then at the picture, then at the landscape again, at length suddenly expressed his delight in a very loud and very singular shout, close in the painter’s ear, that re-echoed from rock to rock. The tourist sprang up in violent alarm, and seeing the extraordinary physiognomy of the personage at his elbow, drew a sudden conclusion of evil intentions, and ran off with great rapidity, leaving all his apparatus behind him. Sir Oran sat down in the artist’s seat, took up the drawing utensils, placed the unfinished drawing on his knee, and sat in an attitude of deep contemplation, as if meditating on the means to be pursued for doing the same thing himself.
The flying tourist encountered Messieurs Fax and Forester, who had observed the transaction, and were laughing at it as heartily as Democritus himself could have done. They tranquillised his apprehensions, and led him back to the spot. Sir Oran, on a hint from his friend Mr. Forester, rose, made the tourist a polite bow, and restored to him his beloved portfolio. They then wished him a good-morning, and left him in a state of nervous trepidation, which made it very obvious that he would draw no more that day.
Mr. Fax. Can Sir Oran draw?
Mr. Forester. No; but I think he would easily acquire the art. It is very probable that in the nation of the Orans, which I take to be a barbarous nation that has not yet learned the use of speech, drawing, as a means of communicating ideas, may be in no contemptible state of forwardness.
Mr. Fax. He has, of course, seen many drawings since he has been among civilised men; what so peculiarly delighted and surprised him in this?
Mr. Forester. I suspect this is the first opportunity he has had of comparing the natural original with the artificial copy; and his delight was excited by seeing the vast scene before him transferred so accurately into so small a compass, and growing, as it were, into a distinct identity under the hand of the artist.
They now arrived at the elms and the fir-tree, which the peasant had pointed out as the landmarks of the dwelling of Desmond. They were surprised to see a very pretty cottage, standing in the midst of a luxuriant garden, one part of which sloped down to the edge of the lake. Everything bore the air of comfort and competence. They almost doubted if the peasant had been correct in his information. Three rosy children, plainly but neatly dressed, were sitting on the edge of the shallow water, watching with intense delight and interest the manœuvres of a paper flotilla, which they had committed to the mercy of the waves.
Mr. Fax. What is the difference between these children, and Xerxes on the shores of Salamis?
Mr. Forester. None, but that where they have pure and unmingled pleasure, his feelings began in selfish pride, and ended in slavish fear; their amusement is natural and innocent; his was unnatural, cruel, and destructive, and therefore more unworthy of a rational being. Better is a poor and wise child than a foolish king that will not be admonished.
A female came from the cottage. Mr. Fax recognised Mrs. Desmond. He was surprised at the change in her appearance. Health and content animated her countenance. The simple neatness of her dress derived an appearance of elegance from its interesting wearer; contrary to the fashionable process, in which dress neither neat nor simple, but a heterogeneous mixture of all the fripperies of Eur
ope, gives what the world calls elegance, where less partial nature has denied it. There are, in this respect, two classes of human beings: Nature makes the first herself, for the beauty of her own creation; her journeymen cut out the second for tailors and mantua-makers to finish. The first, when apparelled, may be called dressed people — the second, peopled dresses; the first bear the same relation to their clothes as an oak bears to its foliage — the second, the same as a wig-block bears to a wig; the first may be compared to cocoa-nuts, in which the kernel is more valuable than the shell — the second, to some varieties of the Testaceous Mollusca, where a shell of infinite value covers a stupid fish that is good for nothing.
Mrs. Desmond recognised Mr. Fax. ‘O sir!’ said she, ‘I rejoice to see you.’— ‘And I rejoice,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘to see you as you now are; Fortune has befriended you.’— ‘You rendered us great service, sir, in our wretched condition; but the benefit, of course, was transient. With the next quarterday Mr. Litigate, our landlord, resumed his persecutions; and we should have been turned out of our wretched dwelling to perish in the roads, had not some happy incident made Miss Melincourt acquainted with our situation. To know what it was, and to make it what it is, were the same thing to her. So suddenly, when the extremity of evil was impending over us, to be placed in this little Paradise in competence — nay, to our simple habits, in affluence, and in such a manner, as if we were bestowing, not receiving favours — O sir, there cannot be two Miss Melincourts! But will you not walk in and take some refreshment? — we can offer you refreshment now. My husband is absent at present, but he will very soon return.’
While she was speaking he arrived. Mr. Fax congratulated him. At his earnest solicitation they entered the cottage, and were delighted with the beautiful neatness that predominated in every part of it. The three children ran in to see the strangers. Mr. Forester took up the little girl, Mr. Fax a boy, and Sir Oran Haut-ton another. The latter took alarm at the physiognomy of his new friend, and cried and kicked, and struggled for release; but Sir Oran, producing a flute from his pocket, struck up a lively air, which reconciled the child, who then sat very quietly on his knee.
Some refreshment was placed before them, and Sir Oran testified, by a copious draught, that he found much virtue in home-brewed ale.
‘There is a farm attached to this cottage,’ said Mr. Desmond; ‘and Miss Melincourt, by having placed me in it, enabled me to maintain my family in comfort and independence, and to educate them in a free, healthy, and natural occupation. I have ever thought agriculture the noblest of human pursuits; to the theory and practice of it I now devote my whole attention, and I am not without hopes that the improvement of this part of my benefactress’s estate will justify her generous confidence in a friendless stranger; but what can repay her benevolence?’
‘I will answer for her,’ said Mr. Forester, ‘though she is as yet personally unknown to me, that she loves benevolence for its own sake, and is satisfied with its consummation.’
After a short conversation, and a promise soon to revisit the now happy family, Mr. Forester, Mr. Fax, and Sir Oran Hautton resumed their walk. Mr. Forester, at parting, put, unobserved, into the hand of the little boy, a folded paper, telling him to give it to his father. It was a leaf which he had torn from his pocket-book; he had enclosed in it a bank-note, and had written on it with a pencil, ‘Do not refuse to a stranger the happiness of reflecting that he has, however tardily and slightly, co-operated with Miss Melincourt in a work of justice.’
CHAPTER XV
THE LIBRARY
MR. FORESTER, MR. Fax, and Sir Oran Haut-ton arrived at Melincourt Castle. They were shown into a parlour, where they were left alone a few minutes; when Mr. Hippy made his appearance, and recognising Sir Oran, shook hands with him very cordially. Mr. Forester produced the letter he had received from Mr. Ratstail, which Mr. Hippy having read, vented a string of invectives against the impudent rascal, and explained the mystery of the adventure, though he seemed to think it strange that Sir Oran could not have explained it himself. Mr. Forester shook his head significantly; and Mr. Hippy, affecting to understand the gesture, exclaimed, ‘ Ah! poor gentleman!’ He then invited them to stay to dinner. ‘ I won’t be refused,’ said he; ‘ I am lord and master of this castle at present, and here you shall stay till to-morrow. Anthy will be delighted to see her friend here’ (bowing to Sir Oran, who returned it with great politeness), ‘ and we will hold a council of war, how to deal with this pair of puppies, Lawrence Litigate, Esquire, and Richard Ratstail, Solicitor. I have several visitors here already: lords, baronets, and squires, all Corydons, sighing for Anthy; but it seems Lovés Labour Lost with all of them. However, love and wine, you know! Anthy won’t give them the first, so I drench them with the second: there will be more bottles than hearts cracked in the business, for all Anthy’s beauty. Men die and worms eat them, as usual, but not for love.
Mr. Forester inquired for Sir Telegraph Paxarett. ‘ An excellent fellow after dinner!’ exclaimed Mr. Hippy. ‘I| never see him in the morning; nor any one else, but my rascal, Harry Fell, and now and then Harry Killquick. The moment breakfast is over, one goes one way, and another another. Anthy locks herself up in the library.’
‘Locks herself up in the library!’ said Mr. Fax: ‘a young lady, a beauty, and an heiress, in the nineteenth century, think of cultivating her understanding!’
‘Strange, but true,’ said Mr. Hippy; ‘and here am I, a poor invalid, left alone all the morning to prowl about the castle like a ghost; that is, when I am well enough to move, which is not always the case. But the library is opened at four, and the party assembles there before dinner; and as it is now about the time, come with me, and I will introduce you.’
They followed Mr. Hippy to the library, where they found Anthelia alone.
‘Anthy,’ said Mr. Hippy, after the forms of introduction, ‘do you know you are accused of laying waste a pine-grove, and carrying it off by cart-loads, with force and arms?’
Anthelia read Mr. Ratstail’s letter. ‘This is a very strange piece of folly,’ she said; ‘I hope it will not be a mischievous one.’ She then renewed the expressions of her gratitude to Sir Oran, and bade him welcome to Melincourt. Sir Oran bowed in silence.
‘Folly and mischief,’ said Mr. Fax, ‘are very nearly allied; and nowhere more conspicuously than in the forms of the law.’ Mr. Forester, You have an admirable library, Miss Melincourt: and I judge from the great number of Italian books, you are justly partial to the poets of that exquisite language. The apartment itself seems singularly adapted to the genius of their poetry, which combines the magnificent simplicity of ancient Greece with the mysterious grandeur of the feudal ages. Those windows of stained glass would recall to an enthusiastic mind the attendant spirit of Tasso; and the waving of the cedars beyond, when the wind makes music in their boughs, with the birds singing in their shades and the softened dash of the torrent from the dingle below, might with little aid from fancy be modulated into that exquisite combination of melody which flowed from the enchanted wood at the entrance of Rinaldo, and which Tasso has painted with a degree of harmony not less magical than the music he describes. Italian poetry is all fairyland: I know not any description of literature so congenial to the tenderness and delicacy of the female mind, which, however opposite may be the tendency of modern education, Nature has most pre-eminently adapted to be ‘a mansion for all lovely forms: a dwelling-place for all sweet sounds and harmonies.’ Of these, Italian poetry is a most inexhaustible fountain; and for that reason I could wish it to be generally acknowledged a point of the very first importance in female education.
Anthelia. You have a better opinion of the understandings of women, sir, than the generality of your lordly sex seems disposed to entertain.
Mr. Forester. The conduct of men, in this respect, is much like that of a gardener who should plant a plot of ground with merely ornamental flowers, and then pass sentence on the soil for not bearing substantial fruit. If women are treated only as
pretty dolls, and dressed in all the fripperies of irrational education; if the vanity of personal adornment and superficial accomplishments be made from their very earliest years to suppress all mental aspirations, and to supersede all thoughts of intellectual beauty, is it to be inferred that they are incapable of better things? But such is the usual logic of tyranny, which first places its extinguisher on the flame, and then argues that it cannot burn.
Mr. Fax. Your remark is not totally just: for though custom, how justly I will not say, banishes women from the fields of classical literature, yet the study of Italian poetry, of which you think so highly, is very much encouraged among them.
Mr. Forester. You should rather say it is not discouraged. They are permitted to know it: but in very few instances is the permission accompanied by any practical aid. The only points practically enforced in female education are sound, colour, and form, — music, dress, drawing, and dancing. The mind is left to take care of itself.
Mr. Fax. And has as much chance of doing so as a horse in a pound, circumscribed in the narrowest limits, and studiously deprived of nourishment.
Anthelia. The simile is, I fear, too just. To think is one of the most unpardonable errors a woman can commit in the eyes of society. In our sex a taste for intellectual pleasures is almost equivalent to taking the veil; and though not absolutely a vow of perpetual celibacy, it has almost always the same practical tendency. In that universal system of superficial education which so studiously depresses the mind of women, a female who aspires to mental improvement will scarcely find in her own sex a congenial associate; and the other will regard her as an intruder on its prescriptive authority, its legitimate and divine right over the dominion of thought and reason: and the general consequence is, that she remains insulated between both, in more than cloistered loneliness. Even in its effect on herself, the ideal beauty which she studies will make her fastidious, too fastidious, perhaps, to the world of realities, and deprive her of the happiness that might be her portion, by fixing her imagination on chimaeras of unattainable excellence.
Complete Works of Thomas Love Peacock Page 19